I got the CALL - Not the race to the finish

If I ever do a memoir, 2010 has to have it's own section, if not very own volume. This year is a whirlwind that keeps picking up size, strength and velocity.

January

I signed with an agent, Andrea Somberg from the Harvey Klinger agency. She began submitting PULL to editors.
February Rejections arrive. (I swear, someday I'll put up the highlights of the rejection emails I got for that book. Some are simply priceless.) I'm dejected, but she maintains her enthusiasm. I remind myself it's only a month. And at least with an agent you don't have to wait six to eight weeks for your rejection, that's got to count for something.
March I hear the first nibbles from WestSide Books. They want my story. Andrea sends word to two other editors looking at the book, they’ve got competition.
AprilI get THE CALL from WestSide. Forty minutes later I’m taking deep breaths and sitting back down in my chair – I was attending the Chicago North RWA Spring Fling Conference at the time, and sadly missed an entire session. But my book was on the road to publication. And I know everything has to be pulled together in record time. WestSide wants PULL as their October 2010 release.

Meaning, I’m off to the races.
MayAndrea and WestSide enter contract negotiations. I begin working on revisions because no matter how much they love your book there’s always something that needs to be changed. WestSide’s artist design the cover. Meanwhile, WestSide pitched PULL to booksellers, who agreed to place orders. I have to say, I couldn’t have asked for a better cover. It made me look, not once but twice, and I realized if I passed it in a bookstore I would at least pick it up to read the cover blurb. What more could I ask for?

Speaking of cover blurbs, this intense introvert was given the task of soliciting for YA authors to read and provide blurbs on PULL. And they wanted award winning or best selling YA authors. During this process I discovered two dismal truths.

1. Award winning and best selling authors seldom have free time, their responses to the requests begin looking a lot like rejection slips.

2. And, if you make enough cold calls, even the most hardened introvert eventually learns to just shrug when it’s time to make another.

There was also one happy truth – make enough requests and finally someone says they’ll take a look. Thumbs up to Tanita Davis, who promised to tell what she really though. And Thank God PULL actually impressed her. You can see part of her review on my websiteJune I began promotion activity, including getting a website up (mostly), creating a custom PULL T-Shirt so I can walk around advertising my own product. Getting business cards to hand out in answer to questions the shirt provokes.

Andrea and WestSide complete contract negotiations. I get to sign the fifteen-page contract. OMG!!

By the end of the month I begin working on line edits. Like I said, there’s always something that needs to be changed. BTW – people warned me I would get tired of re-reading my own book before the process ended. I’m beginning to feel like I could recite the thing from cover to cover in the dark.

July, August and September will have their own set of trials. Including ARCs, reviews, final edits, Marketing, marketing and more marketing. And then, October and The PULL Book Launch.

I’ll keep you posted next month. Meanwhile, I’m off to get that author photo for the inside back cover. Like Alice's White rabbit, I'm late, I'm late.